pparaska

Terry, I agree a vertical tube to the top of the tower, if it were tied well into the rest of the structure of the car, would be the best bet. Unfortunately, the stiff thing to tie it too seems to be the roll bar, which is forward. I asked the guy to angle them down from the top of the hoop, and well, got them shooting back from the sides, at a more horizontal angle. Damn, if you want something done right, you have to do it yourself! I also run a simple tower strut bar, but something that is rigid like an X between the towers would be better to keep that parallelogram from flopping around.

Sounds like a bad ground. Check the ground wire that's in the harness and bolts to the inner fender above the right engine frame rail, just below where the battery sits.

Thanks Dan. I used to have 14x7 Western Cyclone wheels on that car but it was with stock suspension and that cool 70s 110 "red" (actually orange with red tint) paint. Those wheels had 225/60-14s on them and I agree, a 225 tire stuffed under the Z fenders look roller-skatey . Heck, until you get behind my car and bend down, you don't notice those 255 section width meats reach inside so far. What street/track rain tires are you going to use or do you recommend? I'm thinking of using something like that on my daily driver? I only put 3000 miles a year on it.

Ross, good point on how to tie to the towers. Like everything else, I asked for it to be installed a certain way (like tied better to the tower top) but they put it on the upper front face of the tower, although with a decent sized plate. I may add to it and gusset it. Terry, my view is that many of the larges loads are vertical through the tops of the strut towers. Granted there are others and tieing them all together with tubes (now you have a space frame car) would be best. But pickint up those tower loads as they the tires try to push the tower upwards is a worthwhile thing.

Dan, I understand the "wagon wheel" thing. But I think my car looks good without looking "wagon wheel" with the 17s: Granted, it will sit down a few inches with the drivetrain installed. I concur with MacDaddy - good street tires in a wide 15" format are incredibly hard to find, if not impossible. 16s are easier. If I hadn't run across Jim Biondo's wheels, I'd probably have gone with 16" panasports or Revolution wheels. Now that the 5 lug is so popular, I'd look for 16s in a 5 lug format that would work. 17s DO allow for about 10mm more tire, but that's probably splitting hairs.

John, I've seen many people make the mistake of thinking that lowering the crossmember raises the car. jeromio is correct - the struts hold up the car and the frame rails. The frame rails hold up the crossmember. I'd think this will handle horribly.

You'd think that if possible, he'd have safety wired that bolt after the first time it backed out.

No GOOD pics of my bar on my site, but yes, I had it mounted up on the ledge behind the seats, and had the bar tied to the top/front of the strut towers. I was looking mostly for structural stiffness improvements, and I felt that tieing into the point where most of the suspension loads come into the unibody made sense. I had the installer narrow the roll bar hoop to fit it between the inner fenders. Not NHRA legal, but it allowed the seat to move back far enough for my 6'2" frame.

Ouch. 2" will REALLY change the roll center and camber curves. The most you would be able to raise the pickup points of the control arms would be maybe 1". I'd think you took away negative camber, since the arms are probably quite angled down from the wheels to the pivot points on the crossmember? This is the opposite of what you said (bottom of wheels more outward, top more inward). Was this done for oil pan reasons?

My opinions on these questions: Heads: If you are on a budget and don't mind the 40-45 lb weight difference, get the Vortecs. But realize that they can benefit from a pocket porting and need better springs and some guide trimming for much more than stock lift/duration. Forged vs Hypereutectic: If you are not going to turbo/supercharge or not do lots of Nitrous, then the Hypers are nice. Otherwise, the added toughness of Forged is worth the insurance. If you can stay standard on the bores with acceptable size and taper after a clean-up honing, then stay there. The advantage to 5 cubic inches is negligible, and the block will be rebuildable later and worth more later if you sell it. Hope that helps,

I ran a 3/8" AL line up the tunnel in the stock location. Wished I'd gone steel, since the AL one got a small ding in it pulling the motor out. One thing that bothers me about running it in the tunnel is tranny clearance for a Tremec 5spd or T-56 is tight up high. The other thing is the ideas (that the NHRA rule is based on) that having a fuel line in the trans tunnel means it should be shielded from flywheel/flexplate/clutch/etc. explosions that could come through the bellhousing or auto tranny case. The NHRA says that any line in the tunnel needs to be run through a steel pipe of some wall thickness I forget. So maybe in the name of safety, you should run it along the frame rail, but be careful about it getting crushed with a lift or jack. I have a charcoal cannister on my car, but I can't really use it correctly, since the Holley carb I have (3310, old style) doesn't have the right ported vacuum source to pull fumes out of it. That's the "purge" line. One of the other lines to the cannister should be the vapor return line, I suppose. [ September 19, 2001: Message edited by: pparaska ]

I've not investigated the stock u-joint angles with the L6 and stock tranny in place, so I don't know. Buy an angle finder and measure it up. I don't think you can hurt much by putting the urethane ones in. How is the driveshaft? Bent or bad U-joints?

Dump the clutch at a lower rpm and ease into it, slower the first time, and then faster each time until you find the limit? Just an uninformed idea.

jeromio, I had a bunch of fun making my own exhaust from mandrel bends as well. I have about 4 J bends worth of bends in the system, and a few sticks of straight pipe. Alot of measuring, cutting, trimming, but I enjoyed it as it was a creative endeavor. Douglas, I used part of one of those donuts too, to make a tight turn into one of the LONG Dynomax Hemi Super Turbo mufflers on my car. I got mine from The Chassis Shop. You need to call them or get a catalog, they don't have much on their site, but they have alot of really nice race car building hardware.

The torque difference will matter more on how you build the motor (compression, cam, intake choices) than 327 vs 350. I think this may be splitting hairs. One thing to consider is that all the head choices out there work better with 350 and 383 engines. Finding a head that is optimal for the 327 (port volumes, etc.) is not as easy. And rebuild parts are cheaper for the 350 as well. The main/rod bearings for my 327 are STILL on back order from PAW. I have a 327. If I were to do it over again, a 350, 353 (400 block, 307/327 crank), 377 (400 block, 350 crank), 383 (350 block, turned down 400 crank), or 406 would be my choice. Since I like low end around town torque and don't WANT to have to wind to find the power peak, I think one of these would suit me better.

I'm not sure what engine your car has, but if you are doing a JTR swap, you will want to cut down the top bushing to raise the rear of the diff to alleviate haflshaft u-joint angles under squat and to get better u-joint angles (to avoid vibrations and wear) on the driveshaft u-joints. I've documented this stuff at: http://members.home.net/pparaska/drivelinemods.htm Good luck,

Congrats! Sounds like you're having a blast! Let us know about kills and time slips...

Now, I know it's just a plain, boring aluminized steel muffler, but the Dynomax Super Turbo has low back pressure and flows well, but has a decent amount of noise reduction and a nice tone. The Borla is sweet too, but the Dynomax is less than $40.

I'd recommend them for two reasons: 1) it's easier to remove the rubber and inner sleeve (with a torch) and leave the outer sleeve in place, clean it out, and install the urethane bushings, then to put the new OE bushing in. 2) The urethane ones are stiffer, can be easily shortened (on top) to raise the back of the diff to get away from driveshaft u-joint vibrations, and the OE ones will tear and wear out, causing alot of vibration and noise, if you launch the car hard alot with lots of torque.

77Z, you can't link a picture off of your hard drive (unless it's a server ). You need to upload it to a web site and link it from there.

If you're going to Urethane bushings, you want to leave that outer sleeve in the mustache bar anyway. The Urethane bushings are recommended for high torque motors, since the stock pieces (rubber coated washers) deflect too much.

Fun with the metric to SAE adapters, huh? Is the booster problem just a problem with the cam not giving the engine enough vacuum? Are you SURE you fixed all the vacuum leaks? What is the idle vacuum?

Wow - it fits - kind of. Those sectioned frame rails scare the hell out of me. I hope there's some reinforcement some where I can't see. I'm not sure those tubes I see poking through the firewall are enough. Pretty Cool swap though! [ September 17, 2001: Message edited by: pparaska ]

Yeah, Lone, but it's not a Nissan Motor

Sounds Sweet. My guess is 400-425 hp at the flywheel, if not more.